Knockout

by Tracey Ward

  I grinned, remembering him saying that the day we met. “Is that a yes?”

  “It’s a hell yes and hurry up.”

  “I’ll find the girl,” I said, getting up on slightly wobbly legs. I hadn’t finished my breakfast and I’d polished off about half the bottle of champagne all on my own. I was buzzing like a bee.

  One hour, fifty billion dresses and another full bottle of champagne later and Kellen and I were forming our own hive.

  “What do you think of this one?” Laney asked, turning to show off the chiffon monster clinging to her body.

  It wasn’t that the dresses weren’t beautiful. They absolutely were. The champagne was even making me feel a little frillier than normal and in that first hour I had given excited answers, offered suggestions and been the star cheerleader my sister needed me to be. But now Day Drunk Jenna was getting tired and giggly while Bridal Laney was getting annoyed. The last time she’d come out with a dress, I’d told her it was scrumdiddlyumptious. She hadn’t responded.

  “What do you think of this one, Kellen?” I asked, rolling my head toward him and his blindfold.

  He was asleep, snoring lightly.

  “Kellen,” Laney said loudly.

  Still asleep.

  I looked to Laney, shrugging helplessly. “I mean, you did put him in a blindfold in a room pumping classical music.”

  “But this is important.”

  “Not for him,” I protested. “He can’t even see. What do you want him awake for?”

  “I don’t know,” Laney said, her voice sounding suddenly shaky.

  Uh oh.

  “Lane,” I said firmly. She looked at me with her big brown puppy dog eyes. “Give me a sec to wake him up. Let’s let him take the mask off for a minute and stretch his legs while you’re putting on the next dress. He’ll be back in the swing of things by the time you come back out, okay?”

  “Yeah, okay.” She gave me a weak smile. “Thanks, Jenna.”

  “No worries.”

  The second Laney was hidden behind a door again I reached over and ripped the blindfold off. Kellen’s dark eyes shot open, coming to focus on my face that I held just inches from his.

  “Mayday, mayday, sailor!” I whispered loudly. “We are at Defcon pants crap!”

  His eyes shot around the room in alarm. “What? What happened? Is Laney okay?”

  “She won’t be if you don’t perk your ass up. You were sleeping and she was nearly crying.”

  He groaned, slouching back into the chair. “Even when I don’t do anything,” he grumbled.

  I sat back, the world tilting slightly as I did. “What are you talking about?”

  “Nothing. Never mind. I’m awake now. I’m good. Do I have to put the mask back on?”

  “Yep. Sorry, Zorro.”

  “This is—“ he started, but caught himself.

  I’d seen him like this before; exasperated. Laney was a handful. Just like I’d learned patience from dad, Laney had learned control from mom. They weren’t evil about it or unreasonable, they just liked things the way they liked them. You found out early that if it didn’t really matter to you, it wasn’t worth fighting them. Dad, Kellen and I were all pretty easy going so when mom or Laney got going on a tangent or got an idea in their heads, it was pretty easy for all of us to nod our heads and go along for the ride. But sometimes, times like today, it could get to be too much. We all reached our limits eventually and I was pretty sure Kellen had found his.

  Easy going as he could be, Kellen was still a man. A brought up in the hood, amateur boxing man and even the weakest Y chromosome would hit a wall in a place like this.

  “You wanna bounce?” I asked suddenly.

  He frowned, looking at me in surprise. “What?”

  “You wanna ditch? Bail? Skip out?”

  He chuckled. “She’d kill us.”

  “She’d have to find us first.”

  “It is a big city,” he mused.

  “Tell you what. She already knows I’m pretty faded. When she comes back out we’ll tell her I need some air. That I’m getting sick. She won’t want me puking in here and she won’t want me going outside alone in a strange city when I’ve been drinking. We’ll walk around the block, get some air and come back to stare blindly into the abyss some more.”

  “Are you really drunk?” he asked curiously.

  “No. Yes.”

  “Me too,” he muttered, rubbing his hands over his face. “She’s going to be pissed at me for drinking this much. Be grateful she can’t yell at you.”

  “Oh, she can and she will. But the difference between you and me is that I can defy her all day long and it doesn’t cost my vajayjay a dime.”

  He peeked at me from between his fingers. It was dumbly adorable. “Wow. You are wasted. And you implied I have a vagina.”

  “I like to think of it as bubbly bumblebee happy. We should get Cheerios. Kellen, do you think they have Cheerios here?”

  “It’s a bridal boutique, Jen.”

  “But they’re shaped like little rings. Little golden rings. Wedding rings. Ring ring.”

  “Are you stuttering?”

  “No, I’m trying to tell you a joke. Ring ring. Now you say, ‘Who’s there?’”

  He shook his head, dropping his hands and smiling at me. “Knock knock.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s not ring ring, it’s knock knock.”

  “Who’s there?” I asked excitedly.

  “No,” Kellan laughed, “I’m not telling you a joke now. I’m trying to explain something to you.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Me either.”

  “Kellen,” I said, suddenly serious.

  “Yeah?”

  “Kellen?”

  “Yeah?”

  I paused, then whispered, “Kellen.”

  “Jesus, Jenna, what?”

  “Drunkasuarus!” I cried, bursting into giggles.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “That’s the punch line! That’s who’s on the phone. Do you get it?”

  “Kellen,” Laney called, peeking around the edge of the dressing room door. She frowned when she saw me giggling, my face flushed. “Can you take Jenna outside? I think she’s overdone it.”

  “I think you’re right,” he agreed, standing up and taking my elbow. I stumbled up to stand beside him. He wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me in close to help me walk. He smelled so good. Like laundry detergent and Old Spice body wash.

  “Baby?”

  Kellen paused, turning to look back at Laney. “Yeah?”

  “Don’t I get a goodbye kiss?” she asked sweetly.

  “Lane, you asked me to get Jenna outside,” he said sounding impatient.

  Her face fell. “Fine. If you don’t want to.”

  I felt Kellen tense beside me before removing his arm from my waist. He looked down at me. “You okay for a sec?”

  I gave him a thumbs up. “I’m golden, Ponyboy.”

  He grinned briefly before heading over to the door Laney was hiding behind. I noticed his own step wasn’t exactly arrow straight. While he kissed Laney goodbye and whispered back and forth with her, I leaned over and grabbed the almost full bottle of bubbly from beside my chair. I slipped it quickly inside my large messenger bag.

  When Kellen was finally released, we booked it the hell up out of there. I would have run if I hadn’t been convinced I’d slip, fall and crack my head wide open. I didn’t know how I was going to die (who does?) but I knew I wasn’t going down like that.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “So I have a question.”

  Kellen smirked before taking a hit off the now nearly empty bottle of champagne. “Is it how long do I think we have before we get ticketed for drinking in public? ‘Cause I think it’s not long.”

  “No, screw that. I’m untouchable,” I told him, waving his concerns away. “What I’m wondering is why are you here?”

  “Because sitting on the grass in t
he park with you eating cheese fries is better than being blind in that boutique.” He scowled at me. “What was I doing in a store labeled ‘boutique’ anyway? I should forfeit a Man Card immediately.”

  “The guys at the gym will never let you hear the end of it,” I agreed with a grin.

  Kellen’s scowl deepened, his eyes going a little unfocused as he scanned the park. I watched the sunlight filter through the shifting leaves above us, highlighting and shading his hair in different hues of warm brown and honey gold. It looked soft and I knew from experience that it would be. My drunk brain was itching to move my hand to touch it.

  “I don’t go to the gym anymore.”

  My eyebrows shot up in surprise.

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Believe it. I quit.”

  He didn’t look like he’d quit. From the way he was laying on his side in the grass, I could see a small section of his flat, taught stomach where his shirt was raised slightly and if he looked like this without any effort at all, it was an unfair and unholy world we all lived in.

  “Why don’t you work-out anymore?”

  “No, I still work-out. Running and all that.” He brought his eyes back to me, his face unreadable. “I quit boxing.”

  I dropped my French fry into the grass. “You what?!”

  “Yeah,” he said with a small nod. “I quit.”

  “When?”

  “A few months ago.”

  “Did you get hurt?” I asked, trying to remember a match that might have given him an injury. I couldn’t think of one. “What happened?”

  He chuckled unhappily. “Laney didn’t like it. She never has. She asked me to quit because she said she couldn’t take it watching me get hit like that.”

  “You don’t get hit very often,” I muttered, thinking of all the matches I’d seen him win. All of the championships he’d taken over the years.

  “I try not to. But she said it scares her. She cried and I felt like shit so… I don’t know. What else could I do?”

  I felt like he was honestly asking me. Like he thought I’d find a solution where he could keep Laney happy and still do this thing that he loved so much. But I didn’t have an answer. Not a good one.

  I frowned, looking down and pulling at blades of grass. “I don’t know,” I mumbled.

  “Yeah, me either.”

  I felt him look away. I could still feel when his eyes were on me. I don’t know if everyone could or if it was just me, but it was intense. I liked it. Probably a little too much. Too much for the brotherly love I tried to maintain and too much for his engagement. Too much for my heart that had learned it had to hide from him in order to survive.

  “That wasn’t what you were asking, was it?” he asked suddenly.

  “What do you mean?”

  He looked to me again. I met his gaze. “You weren’t asking why I was here in the park with you.”

  I pinched my lips together, shaking my head. “No.”

  “You meant why am I here in New York with her?”

  I nodded silently. Kellen sighed and sat up, turning to face me. He sat as I was – my legs twisted like a pretzel in front of me. I don’t know if he did it on purpose or if he was too drunk to gauge the distance between us, but he sat so close his knees were pushing against mine. My fingers still shredding the grass in front of me brushed against the rough material of his jeans.

  “I thought you weren’t supposed to see the bride in her dress before the wedding,” I said, surprised by the softness of my voice. Being close to him like this hushed me. It pinpointed the world down to just him and I and this space we were occupying. It was a rarity these days. A bubble I was scared to burst.

  He smirked at me. “I didn’t see anything, remember?”

  He offered me the bottle. I grinned, snagging it from his hand.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I’m not so much interested in seeing the dress as the price tag.”

  “Why are you worried? I thought dad was paying for it.”

  I took a hit off the bottle, then offered it back to him. When he took it, his fingers brushed against mine.

  “Just because we’re not paying for it doesn’t mean I think she should spend as much on a dress as most people do on a car.” He took a drink, shaking his head as he swallowed. “This wedding stuff, Jen… it’s so insane. I had no idea.”

  “I think a wedding is only as expensive as you make it.”

  He snorted, handing the bottle back. “Isn’t that the truth? She wants doves. Why? Are we keeping them and naming them? No, we’re supposed to release them when we walk out like we’re John fucking Woo. We’re basically buying throw away birds.”

  I grinned. “Would you feel better if you ate them afterward?”

  “A little, yeah! At least we’d get something out of it.”

  “I think Laney sees it as getting a memory out of it. A great photo for on the wall to look at and remember the day. She’s not the type to spend the money just to show she can.”

  “No, I know that,” he admitted, his tone softening. “I wouldn’t be marrying her if she were that girl. I get that this is a dream for her. It’s something she’s thought about her whole life and she wants it to be perfect. I just don’t understand a little girl sitting in her room dreaming of doves.” He reached out to take the bottle from me. His fingers didn’t just brush mine. They covered them, sliding down them slowly as he pulled the now warm bottle from my grasp. “What about you? What’s your aviary fantasy?”

  I chuckled, shaking my head. “Weddings and doves and puffy white dresses? I don’t know. That’s never been me.”

  “What is you, then?”

  I looked away from him, hurting a little inside. “You’ve known me for years. You don’t know?”

  “You,” he said thoughtfully, pausing for a long time. “You are an old dance hall.”

  I laughed. “An old dance hall?”

  He grinned crookedly. “Yeah. Or a recovered warehouse. Maybe a waterfall or the redwoods. I’m not sure, but I know what you’re not. You’re not the Waldorf-Astoria or a ballroom or the top of the Eiffel Tower. You’re a backyard BBQ by the pool with a beer in your hand and a dress that weighs less than you do.”

  I pursed my lips and nod in agreement. “I could be into that.”

  “No orchestra or place settings.”

  “No ten tier cakes.”

  “No ice sculptures.”

  “No tuxedos.”

  Kellen grimaced. “No, stop. You’re killing me.”

  “Not a tux fan?”

  “Who is? It’s too confining. I always feel like I’m going to rip the seams in the shoulders.”

  “Then I say don’t wear one. It’s your wedding too, you know?”

  He chuckled. “You wouldn’t make me wear one, huh?”

  “Nope.” I cocked my head sideways, looking him over. He smiled at my scrutiny. “I’m thinking… the jeans that you’re wearing right now cause they’re your favorite and you’re comfortable in them—“

  “What? These old things?” he asked drolly.

  I smiled. “Well and your ass looks great in them.”

  His eyebrows shot straight up. “Really?”

  “Pft!” I scoffed. “As if you didn’t know. As if that’s not why they’re your favorite.”

  “Guilty. What else. These jeans and…”

  “A suit jacket. Unbuttoned, of course. And that T-shirt. It suits your eyes.”

  “So you’re saying if I put on a suit jacket right now, you’d count me ready to be married?” he asked skeptically.

  I shrugged, looking away out over the park and the couples strolling in the sunshine. “What you’re wearing doesn’t make you ready to be married. If a guy is happy and sure that waiting for me at the end of that aisle is where he wants to be, I don’t care what clothes he has on cause his eyes are all I’m going to see.”

  Day Drunk Jenna is apparently very transparent and a little whimsical. I was surpr
ised by my own words. Maybe even a little embarrassed.

  “I’m marrying the wrong sister,” Kellen said, his voice surprisingly deep.

  My eyes snapped to his. He was looking at me. Staring, really and it was strange. Different. He was breathing calm and even but there was something to that look that made my heart pound in my chest. It created an urgency in the air around us that was making it hard to breathe. It was vaguely familiar. A thickening to the atmosphere. A storm building. The taste of peanut butter and sugar.

  “You shouldn’t have said that,” I whispered.

  He nodded, his dark eyes never leaving mine. Never letting me go. “I know.”

  “Take it back.”

  “No.”

  I blinked, shocked and scared of where this was going.

  “Why?” I breathed.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.”

  “What do you mean? You’re marrying my sister, that’s what you’re doing.”

  “Am I?” he demanded, his voice growing tense.

  “Are you?” I challenged, my heart racing.

  He shook his head in frustration. “I don’t know. There’s so much momentum.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’re buying a house? Did you know that?”

  “No.”

  “Yeah. We’re buying a house and we’ve been buying all this new furniture for it. Filling it with stuff to start this life and I’m working my way up in your dad’s firm and I’m on this track, this bullet train to this place but I don’t know where it’s going and I don’t know—“

  He stopped himself. Cut himself off abruptly as though he had suddenly heard himself and he was horrified by what he had been saying. But I don’t think that made it any less true.

  “Kellen.”

  He stood up quickly, stumbling slightly to the right. “We should get back. Laney will wonder where we are.”

  He reached down to help me stand up but he wouldn’t meet my eyes. When he tried to pull his hand back once I was standing, I refused to let go.

  “Hey,” I told him, tugging on his hand. He looked at me but the shutters were drawn. He was in control again and the air around us was free and breezy, pulling the world away with it.

  “Don’t tell anyone what I said, alright? It’s the alcohol and stress of the wedding. Nothing else. Okay?